Proceedings of nanoGe Fall Meeting19 (NFM19)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.nfm.2019.141
Publication date: 18th July 2019
Progress in the development of metal oxide photoelectrodes in the past 10-15 years has shifted focus towards fabricating practical stand-alone solar water splitting devices. Integrated tandem devices in near-neutral pH electrolytes based on the combination of a BiVO4-based photoanode as a wide-bandgap top absorber and various types of bottom absorbers have been reported, and solar-to-hydrogen (STH) efficiencies approaching 10% have been demonstrated.[1-2] Nevertheless, the majority of these demonstration devices still have active areas of less than 1 cm2. The next step is to move beyond lab-scale experiments and demonstrate large-area devices. Here, we report the scale-up of spray-deposited BiVO4 photoanodes from <1 to 50 cm2, from which we observed a significant performance loss with increased area. An unbiased 50 cm2 PV-PEC water splitting device is demonstrated with an STH efficiency of 2.1%. While this is the highest reported value for a large-area (> 10 cm2) BiVO4-based water splitting device, it is still a factor of 2-3 lower than the efficiency achieved using the corresponding small-area device. By performing a series of control experiments, we found that factors other than the BiVO4 itself, such as substrate conductivity, electrolyte conductivity, and cell geometry, are responsible for a total voltage loss of 600 mV and therefore limit the performance of the large-area photoanode. The different loss mechanisms associated with scaling-up photoelectrodes were further quantified using a finite element analysis model (COMSOL Multiphysics®). Based on these insights, electrochemical engineering strategies to overcome these losses are offered, which would limit the voltage loss for large-area photoelectrodes to less than 50 mV.
nanoGe is a prestigious brand of successful science conferences that are developed along the year in different areas of the world since 2009. Our worldwide conferences cover cutting-edge materials topics like perovskite solar cells, photovoltaics, optoelectronics, solar fuel conversion, surface science, catalysis and two-dimensional materials, among many others.
Previously nanoGe Spring Meeting (NSM) and nanoGe Fall Meeting (NFM), MATSUS is a multiple symposia conference focused on a broad set of topics of advanced materials preparation, their fundamental properties, and their applications, in fields such as renewable energy, photovoltaics, lighting, semiconductor quantum dots, 2-D materials synthesis, charge carriers dynamics, microscopy and spectroscopy semiconductors fundamentals, etc.
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV) is celebrated yearly in May. The main topics are the development, function and modeling of materials and devices for hybrid and organic solar cells. The field is now dominated by perovskite solar cells but also other hybrid technologies, as organic solar cells, quantum dot solar cells, and dye-sensitized solar cells and their integration into devices for photoelectrochemical solar fuel production.
Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics
The main topics of the Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics (IPEROP) are discussed every year in Asia-Pacific for gathering the recent advances in the fields of material preparation, modeling and fabrication of perovskite and hybrid and organic materials. Photovoltaic devices are analyzed from fundamental physics and materials properties to a broad set of applications. The conference also covers the developments of perovskite optoelectronics, including light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.
The International Conference on Perovskite Thin Film Photovoltaics Perovskite Photonics and Optoelectronics (NIPHO) is the best place to hear the latest developments in perovskite solar cells as well as on recent advances in the fields of perovskite light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.